Planet is excited to announce the launch of Crop Biomass Version 5! By integrating PlanetScope as our primary optical source, we have upgraded our daily, cloud-free signal from 10m to 3m spatial resolution. This increase in spatial resolution is key for users working in regions dominated by smallholder farms and intensive cropping systems.
Comparison of intra-field detail: Crop Biomass V4 (10 m) vs. V5 (3 m).
What’s New?
In addition to increased spatial resolution, we have introduced several technical enhancements:
- Enhanced Metadata: New metadata, such as the average NDVI (from the latest optical observation), the probability of snow, and the probability of water, have been added to the rasters to support the interpretation of the data. The full list can be found in the Technical Specification.
- Improved Signal Responsiveness: We have improved the responsiveness of the time series, reducing the lag between the Crop Biomass signal and NDVI by several days. This was achieved by transitioning from a "rolling mean" to time-series regularization, a technique based on this recently published paper. This ensures the data is more reactive to real-time field changes while maintaining a smooth, reliable signal.
- Removal of Spatial Seam Lines: Improvements were made to the data harmonization process, which led to better temporal consistency with Sentinel-2 and removed the spatial seam lines.
How to Access?
Crop Biomass V5 remains a fully analysis-ready product, delivered via the Planet Subscriptions API. Existing customers can access V5 immediately under their unified "10m + 3m" quota.
Learn more in the Introduction to Crop Biomass course or see the Crop Biomass Datasheet or Crop Biomass Technical Specifications.
